Non-Serviceable and Substandard Type 1 Unicellular Plastic Foam Life Preservers Recently during several annual inspections of small passenger vessels, Coast Guard Marine Inspectors discovered a number of problems with Personal Flotation Devices (PFDs) manufactured by Atlantic-Pacific Manufacturing Co. (APCO). APCO formerly produced various types of PFDs including several sizes of unicellular plastic foam life preservers and is currently out of business. PFDs from other manufacturers could have similar problems. A close inspection revealed - * varying body strap lengths, sometimes less than 54" from the tip of the snap hook to the tip of the D-ring, resulting in a very tight fitting adult sized PFD on average sized crewmember, * non-resilient and brittle condition of the PFD flotation foam, * differences in foam volumes and physical size for the same model of PFD and, * inaccurate markings, incorrect Q-spec numbers (106.055 vs. 160.055), misspelled words, and incorrect narratives. Additionally, follow-up buoyancy tests of suspect PFDs performed by the Marine Inspectors resulted in numerous failures. All PFDS that had failed were condemned and each exhibited noticeable shrinkage and compression. Many of these PFDs have been in use since the 1970's and may have reached the end of their service life. See images on PDF file available at http://safetyseal.net/pdf_files/PFD3-05.pdf